Song of the Week – 28 April 2014

I was thinking long and hard about which song to choose for this week’s Song of the Week. It is a toss up between two very different songs. The first is a rock ballad by visual kei group Alice Nine “SHADOWPLAY” and the second is “Find the way” by Bii which combines English and Mandarin along with a Korean rap. I like these two songs for completely different reasons.

The great thing about “SHADOWPLAY” is that since it is more of a ballad, it parts from Alice Nine’s main sound a bit. Truthfully, to me, a lot of their recent songs began to sound a lot alike, thus when I hear this song, I am happy to see it stray from that more. And the guitar solos! They are awesome. Hiroto and Tora rock. You don’t have to take my word for it, just listen to the song. Mixing the harsher rock sounds with Shou’s soft vocals works well with this song.

I’ve loved Bii since his debut. After taking a year off from his music career to complete Taiwan’s mandatory military service, he’s back (okay, he official came back wit the album Come Back to Bii) and making a lot of great music. “Find the Way” is a song from his collaboration album with Andrew Tan, Dino, and Ian. I believe ‘Find the way” is solely his song alone and out of like the 5 or 6 tracks on the album, it’s the first not solely in English. “Revolution” is the second track that is in Mandarin. I’m not 100% enamored with Bii’s rap in this song, but bringing the entire package, the little smattering of English, the Mandarin, and then enter into the Korean rap, it does work together even if the rap isn’t as polished as Bii’s vocals. I really do enjoy and love this song immensely, along with the title track “Everything Changes.”